A New Beginning for New Life Voices

Welcome to the very first Editor’s Corner at New Life Voices. Each month, I’ll share our collective milestones, spotlight the work happening across our transplant community, and chart the road ahead.

Our book, New Life. New Beginnings, was created with one purpose: to let our country see who we truly are—organ recipients, living donors, and the doctors who make second chances possible. We wanted to show the transformed lives we lead after the terrifying years of organ failure, to break the stereotype that transplant recipients are “diseased” or forever frail, and to challenge the belief that only the elderly receive transplants. As the stories in our book show so powerfully, many recipients were young adults, and some were even children.

This month marks a turning point in our journey. A representation signed by 27 recipients, one living donor, and three leading transplant surgeons—including Dr KR Balakrishan, Dr Sandeep Attawar, and Dr Sunder Sankaran—resulted in a written clarification from IRDAI. In a landmark letter (available on our website), Shri Mohan Kumar, General Manager, affirmed that under the Master Circular of March 2024,
“These provisions comprehensively ensure inclusion and protection for all categories of individuals, including organ donors and recipients under health coverage.”

For our community, this is more than a clarification—it is recognition. It confirms that we belong within India’s health-insurance framework.

Our next mission is equally important: ensuring that this clarification is formally incorporated into the Master Circular of March 2026, and that IRDAI explicitly instructs insurers to issue health policies to post-transplant recipients and living donors. The reluctance we encounter only strengthens our resolve. Reform always begins with persistence versus resistance.

Another heartening development is that several transplant doctors have begun recommending or gifting New Life. New Beginnings to their patients—both those newly transplanted and those waiting anxiously on the list. Many patients have told us how deeply the book has helped them understand the path ahead, offering comfort, courage, and a sense of belonging. Our hope is that all transplant centres across India adopt this practice. The reviews of the book have been good. See the latest one here from Corporate Citizen December 2025.

The success of our representation has shown us something profound: when transplant people come together, our voice carries weight. We can create change. We have already begun.

Let us continue to move forward—with hope, clarity, and collective strength.

Until next month,
Viney Kirpal

7 December 2025